Food bucket pico sterile macroalgae project

[Sharpr88]

Decided to repurpose a food bucket as a modular algae system. 

 

The first bucket in the system will be ulva. No filtration, no fish. Bacteria and copepods only. 

 

1 gallon with a diy airlift pump.

 

I will eventually be adding more buckets in sequence with different specimens. My target final water volume will be around 30 gallons.

 

Right now I'm simply ghost feeding and using water from our reef tank water changes.

[Sharpr88]

Total cost so far is $9. The ulva was free as a hitchhiker.

[M. Tournesol]

Ghost feeding will do nothing as not a lot of bacteria will develop on the container wall.

You should add some sand and/or a rock.

[Sharpr88]

Will shells work or do I want something more porous?

[M. Tournesol]

more porous = more surface but yes, shells is better than nothing. 

 

[Murphs_Reef]

Add a little rubble rock maybe? Entertaining project

[M. Tournesol]

Trustfully, this could wait for the algae to come. and I am not even Sur that the algae, pods will need it. Phosphate is not a problem for algae or pods. But it will increase the stability or your setup.

[Sharpr88]

Ok. I may go ahead and add a second bucket to the system then to add the stuff to. I kind of want to model this after aquaponics/hydroponics systems.  

[M. Tournesol]

You may also have a need to dose fertilizer since 30 gallons of algae will have a hight consummation of iron, and other... (not a specialist 🙃)

You should look at what is dosed in algae centric tank.

[M. Tournesol]

Just now, Sharpr88 said:

kind of want to model this after aquaponics/hydroponics systems.  

will you have fishes in the system?

[Sharpr88]

At most maybe an invert. I don't really want any fish, corals or much of anything other than algae. 

 

I do plan on running this at 82f once I add more specimines to maximize growth.

 

I'm not opposed to adding nutrients/CO2 down the line.

[Sharpr88]

Expanding the system to a whopping 2.5 gallons. I've decided to add some manila clams as well as a small, populated live rock from our main aquarium. Going to remove the surface material from it but not much else.

 

Will post photos of the second bucket in the sequence.

[Sharpr88]

Here's some pics! My diy airlift pump is moving 4 gallons an hour right now. 

 

I'll be adding the live rock tomorrow.

[M. Tournesol]

Alive clams? they need a very stable tank and a lot( AND LOT) of plankton to live. non-photosynthetic clams are hard to find in saltwater because they are too difficult to keep alive long term.

 

 

[Sharpr88]

We have phytoplankton cubes for feeding. 

These are from the grocery store. Some of them may not make it just due to rough handling and who knows what else. 

 

As far as the system stability goes it will increase as the total water quantity increases. I would like to have it up to 30 gallons soon but I'm waiting to see what algae we have coming in.

 

 

[filefishfinatic]

update